Southwold Summer Theatre
Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 26 July 2012
Every summer season needs at least one good murder. This is it.
A clever plot, told well and set in the obligatory ramshackle country house with dark nights outside and creakings upstairs concerns a watertight plan to do away with a thoroughly unpleasant man.
The play uses the devices of whodunnit writers to pose a hypothetical solution to a problem. However, the perfect murder is a rare thing, and the curse of the unexpected thwarts the perpetrators.
At the heart of it are two brothers, the Cain and Abel story in a sense. The older one is to inherit the estate and title, the younger one has nothing except a writer’s imagination. Mark Jackson and Jonny McPherson play them with panache, both … Read entire article »

Maddermarket Theatre, Norwich
Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 21 July 2012
This little-performed comic gem offers penetrating insight into England a hundred years ago.
It’s a study in social mores, class, male/female relationships, the north/south divide, the West Riding of Yorkshire of JB Priestley’s youth and, above all, respectability.
Lines like ‘trouble at mill’, ‘the little woman’ and ‘she picked well from the lucky bag in marrying me’ are funny but attitudes sound shocking to today’s minds.
Three couples celebrate the twenty fifth anniversary of their marriages at the same chapel on the same day. They discover the parson was unqualified, so they’re not actually married, which sets the cat among the pigeons, unleashing comic mayhem.
Robin Dauncy, James McGarry and Matthew Pinkerton play the pompous, useless and henpecked husbands. Their wives Cassie Tillett, … Read entire article »

Eccentrics are ‘off centre’ or ‘beyond the norms’ of others. They can be thought crazy, are unafraid to be different and add to the colour of British life.
Eccentricity isn’t confined to the UK, though HistoryUK.com said: ‘England may be a small country but seems to have more true eccentrics than many larger countries’. All nationalities enjoy practical jokes, dress outrageously, behave to shock and have mindsets that see differently.
French author David d’Equainville (Manifesto for a Day Put Off) founded International Procrastination Day, to promote ‘positive procrastination’ in the fast-paced, results-driven world. It’s an act of resistance against orders, a ‘defence mechanism’. He accepted some would delay the Day.
Creatives are frequently eccentrics, too. Britain’s Official Monster Raving Loony Party manifesto (there’s also a US version), includes such ‘fun’ demands … Read entire article »

Works of art are often left incomplete through war or artists’ death. Some are finished by other people; but most are made interesting by being abandoned.
On the April 2011 publication of David Foster Wallace’s novel, The Pale King, Robert Douglas-Fairhurst wondered in Britain’s Sunday Times at the attraction of unfinished works. ‘You don’t buy a jacket with one arm, so why seek out what amounts to a creative stump or narrative doodle?’
Wallace’s book came from 200 pages left stacked on his desk when he committed suicide in 2008, intertwined with fragments from his bin. For many readers, it’s a suicide note revealing the man’s state of mind.
Douglas-Fairhurst also cited Henry James’ short story The Middle Years about a novelist on his deathbed dreaming of the stories he might … Read entire article »

Super-scaling has become the era’s hallmark: ‘super’ tankers, bugs and drugs, disasters, wealth, numbers. What will future social historians make of it all?
In the early 21st century, size psychology was paramount. People wanted to be best, biggest/smallest, richest, happiest, most successful. The retail sector cottoned on: clothes’ size perception (‘does my backside look big in this?’) drove sales.
Male obsession with personal body part size applied equally to their feet; outward indicators of size elsewhere. Business echoed, with its biggest chair, desk, room, building crucial to executive ego.
However, history teaches everything is relative. A mega-calamity was only such till the next. The tightest/harshest economic squeeze/breath-taking achievement, the super meal/music/show held the crown while new ultimate thrills arrived.
Super Number-Crunching
With national debts written in figures so gigantic new descriptors were invented, … Read entire article »

Southwold Summer Theatre
Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 13 July 2012
The summer theatre season in Southwold got off to a splendid, inspired and madcap start with Dave Freeman’s 1970s version of the farce genre.
This does exactly what it says on the tin – comic characters in ludicrous situations employing quick thinking that makes matters worse via some very funny lines. Oh yes, and enough trouser dropping to keep everybody laughing.
Anthony Falkingham directs, making the most of the space and entrances and achieving that sometimes elusive balance between the predictable and the new angle on old themes.
Terry Malloy, famed in The Archers and as Dr Who’s arch-enemy Davros, takes the lead.
Strong performances from Clive Flint, Iain Ridley, Sarah Ogley, Penelope Rawlins, Michael Shaw and Rosanna Miles ensure they all tumble … Read entire article »

Marina Theatre, Lowestoft
Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 5 July 2012.
Fresh from the creators of the top-rated Dreamboats and Petticoats, Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran, comes a musical concoction set in the early 1960s.
It is appropriate that it should come to Lowestoft en route to the West End, as much of it is set in the town of that time. Memories flood back.
The plot is simple – black US airman and white English girl fall in love when she and her sister take a week’s seaside holiday against their parents’ wishes.
But music brings it to youthful life. Reliving the hit songs of Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman, the on-stage band pump out classics like This Magic Moment, Sweets for My Sweet, A Teenager in Love, Suspicion, Viva Las Vegas, … Read entire article »